Reflections by award-winning maritime historian Joan Druett, author of many books about the sea

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Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Yet another marketing ploy for The Lace Reader

Salem enters into the spirit of promoting Lace Reader

With William Morrow's edition of Brunonia Barry's The Lace Reader publishing today, the folks in Salem, MA are enjoying the attention.

"Morrow is working with Salem's tourism agency, local merchants, and historic sites to promote the book, which is set here, and the city at the same time. While Salem hopes The Lace Reader will draw tourists to town, author and publisher hope the city's attractions will bolster the book." Director of the tourism bureau Kate Fox says, "It has been the greatest thing to fall into Salem's lap, for promotion and marketing."

Barry is the latest marketing sensation. Reluctant to approach publishers with her first novel, she entered the self-publishing game, with such spectacular results that she negotiated a two-million-dollar deal for The Lace Reader plus another book to come with William Morrow of HarperCollins Publishers. Go to her website to see the trailer. http://www.lacereader.com/

This marketing partnership with the town of Salem was -- guess what -- suggested by the author. As successful as all her other ploys, it led to a long Boston Globe feature. The paper notes: "Locating a novel in a relatively more intimate, colorful, and historic community like Salem, which everyone has heard of but relatively few have visited, can draw people who want to see the real places they read about. While that's good short-term publicity for a new book, it can benefit a city for years."

I love Salem; have spent many absorbing hours in the Phillips Library at the Peabody-Essex Museum. The flamboyant shipmasters of the early Salem trading vessels played a big part in early colonial New Zealand. And in the Wiki Coffin novels his father, the colorful and reprehensible Captain William Coffin, was a citizen of the place.